This invention relates generally to packages for containing food products and, in particular, to microwavable packages for containing food products during storage and microwave cooking.
The cooking of many types of foods and food products involves more than simply elevating the temperature of the food product to a desired level. How the food product is heated and, in particular, the characteristics of the environment surrounding the product during cooking, can have a pronounced effect on the flavor, texture, and overall savoriness of the cooked food product. Although microwave ovens offer cooks a very real benefit in terms of both time and convenience, such ovens, by their nature, do not always provide the ideal cooking environment for some foods, particularly those foods which are being cooked for the first time as opposed to being reheated.
Bacon has long been a difficult food for unpracticed cooks to prepare to perfection, particularly when the bacon is pan-fried using conventional ranges and cookware. Because bacon strips are typically long and very thin, achieving uniform cooking during pan-frying can be difficult, and it is not unusual for some efforts to result in bacon strips which are burned at one end and grossly undercooked at the other. In addition, the often considerable quantity of oil and grease released by bacon during cooking can create a risk of spattering and can make subsequent cleanup a formidable and unwelcome task.
The advent of microwave ovens has, in many ways, made it much easier to cook bacon successfully. The substantially uniform, internal heating provided by such ovens promotes uniform cooking, and the known concept of enclosing bacon within a disposable wrapper during microwave cooking reduces spattering and greatly simplifies subsequent cleanup. Nevertheless, bacon cooked in a microwave oven sometimes lacks the subtleties of texture and taste found in pan-fried bacon. Accordingly, cooks are often left with the prospect of choosing between the ease and convenience of microwaved bacon or the superior texture and flavor of pan-fried bacon.
In view of the foregoing, it is a general object of the present invention to provide a new and improved microwavable package for containing food products during storage and microwave cooking.
It is a more specific object of the present invention to provide a new and improved disposable microwavable package for containing, during storage and cooking, food products, such as bacon or sausage, which typically release grease or oil during cooking.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a new and improved disposable microwavable package which reduces spattering, facilitates cleanup by containing released grease or oil both during cooking and afterwards and which imparts a desired pan-fried quality to the food product it contains during microwave cooking.